The entire disclosure of Japanese Patent Application No. 2006-241119, filed Sep. 9, 2006 is expressly incorporated herein by reference.
1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to electrooptical devices. More specifically, the present invention relates to an electronic apparatus capable of simultaneously displaying two images in different directions.
2. Related Art
Electrooptical devices which are capable of simultaneously displaying two images in different directions are known in the art. Typically, such devices include a display panel, such as a liquid crystal panel, which includes a light-shield barrier layer with a number of light apertures. One example of such a device is found in Japanese Patent No. 2,857,429, which discloses a three-dimensional image display device which is capable of creating a three-dimensional display with two images.
FIG. 10 is an enlarged view of a liquid crystal device 6 which serves an electrooptical device for two-screen display. The liquid crystal device 6 includes pixels 4r, 4g, and 4b, which are arranged in matrix and configured to display red, green, and blue by using color filters 12r, 12g, and 12b (shown in FIG. 11), and light-shielding portions 14 that separate the pixels 4r, 4g, and 4b. The width of the light-shielding portions 14 is generally constant. The pixels 4r, 4g, and 4b also function as pixels 4L for displaying a first image and as pixels 4R for displaying a second image. The liquid crystal device 6 further includes a barrier layer 32 (shown in FIG. 11) with apertures 33 provided between the right ends of the pixels 4R and the left ends of the pixels 4L. In FIG. 10, hatched portions represent regions where the barrier layer 32 is provided. Generally, the width of the apertures 33 is slightly larger than the width of the light-shielding portions 14.
FIG. 11 illustrates the relationship between the viewing angle and the display of the images, by showing the light passing through an aperture 33 provided between a pixel 4b (pixel 4R) and a pixel 4r (pixel 4L) at various viewing angles. The display light from the pixel 4r passes through the aperture 33, and is displayed to the area illustrated as an angle range 9r. Similarly, the display light from pixels 4g and 4b is displayed to angle ranges 9g and 9b. As a result, only the display light from the pixel 4r is displayed in the angle range VL and only the display light from the pixel 4b is displayed in the angle range VR. Thus, only a first image corresponding to the pixel 4L is display in the angle range VL, and only a second image corresponding to the pixel 4R is displayed in the angle range VR. Using this configuration, the liquid crystal device 6 displays two different images in the angle ranges VL and VR.
One disadvantage of the current configuration, however, is that in the angle range VC, a mixture of the first image and the second image is displayed, rather than one complete image. In order to reduce the mixing of the two images, the width of the apertures 33 of the barrier layer 32 need to be close to the width of the light-shielding portions 14.
Unfortunately, however, the width of the apertures 33 is decreased to reduce size of the area where the two images are mixed, the amount of display light which is allowed to pass through the apertures 33 is reduced and the amount of brightness in the display in the angle ranges VL and VR is decreased.